Future Conversations

Many of us are struggling to find time or willingness to consider our future. The changes we’re facing in the next two or three decades are complex, often contradictory, and can feel daunting. Research shows that our main strategies for coping with future changes are denial and avoidance.

Moving people from overload to active participant in a positive future is the key aim of Future Conversations. The project aims to use natural spaces to start conversations about our shared future, working primarily with disadvantaged individuals and communities facing social and economic hardship, and with community organisers who support them.

A series of guided conversations will enable people to explore their hopes, fears and needs for the next 5-20 years. We will explore facts and feelings, and provide processes and information to grow the confidence and skills to shape the future positively.

Hosting community conversations in natural settings, Future Conversations will offer a menu of process tools, practical techniques and activities including natural resilience and deep ecology, but with content geared to participants’ needs. We will be running four pilot programmes, consisting of 5 to 8 sessions, during March – July 2019, with local community groups in London, the Midlands and Scotland.

Work Plan and Target Timetable

A. Scoping and feasibility. Research existing best practice and identify local partner organisations. Run one-off pilot sessions with a number of potential participant groups, co-hosted with a local delivery partner, to assess the viability of the idea, and guide content development. Autumn 2018. Completed.

E. Roll-out. Agreements with roll-out partners, create the full set of materials and processes, recruit delivery partners, train facilitators. Late 2019/early 2020.

Format and content

We envisage a series of 6-8 conversations, each about two to three hours long, for a group of 8-14 participants, with two facilitators. The interval between sessions would be between weekly and monthly.

The aim is to recruit people with an actual or potential connection, e.g. living in the same neighbourhood, members of one organisation such as a community group, etc. The venue could be a city farm, community garden, local community centre, allotment, library or similar public space with green space close by.

The first session would be a ‘taster’, preferably for 12-18 people, at which people would be invited to commit to the full series of sessions. All details of the sessions are open to negotiation with local partner organisations. Sample session content for the series could include:

A. Taster: exploratory session sharing how you feel, what you think about the future, or how you avoid it. Some ways to consider the future (e.g. the 3 scenarios, circles of influence/concern). What Future Conversations offers, including the potential topics. Consensus about the shape of the programme. Aim to agree practicalities like length of sessions, and the target content of the sessions.

C. Natural Happiness: learning about human nature, and how to grow your own happiness, by learning from nature and gardening. For example how to ‘compost’ your concerns and stress, how to nourish your roots and support network, including community connections.

D. The Big Picture: using a deep ecology process to face fears about the future, find new perspectives, and a new sense of fellowship and purpose. Finding a sense of hope and what you can believe in, both individually and in your community.

E. At Home with the Planet: exploring fears, facts and practicalities around environmental sustainability and climate change. Exploring different views and ways to respond to it, including Deep Adaptation and Extinction Rebellion.

F. Community Matters 1: What does community mean to you: what do you need, what can you offer to your communities (e.g. your neighbourhood, family, faith, work groups?) Skills and resources to help community groups to function better.

G. Community Matters 2: Exploring current and future issues around the front-line services that you and your community need, such as the NHS, local authority services, education, etc. Considering how to take an empowered approach, including community action.

H. Completion and beyond: wrap-up session. Celebrating the shared journey. Exploring follow-on hopes and plans, and how to find support and information to move forward from here.

Partner Organisations

We are interested in contact with additional partners for the next stages of the project.

Pilot partners: these could be local projects, or national organisations.

Roll-out partners: we are seeking a few regional or natural partners who could use this process through their network.

Funding

The research and development to date, has been funded by Seeding our Future. SOF has limited funds for the pilot programmes, and we are seeking to share the costs with local partners. Roll-out would need funding from partner organisations or external funders.